The California Republican leading a probe into the gun-trafficking sting Operation Fast and Furious is opening an inquiry into another reported Justice Department scheme in which U.S. narcotics agents laundered drug proceeds to Mexican cartels across the border.

The probe is being brought on by a front-page New York Times article from Sunday, which reported that undercover agents have transferred millions of dollars in drug cash across the border to drug cartels “to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.” It’s one of many such international operations like it, though this one started only a few years ago, according to The Times.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sought to draw a parallel between the reported money-laundering operation’s tactics and those in Fast and Furious, in which agents purposefully let illegal gun buys go through and then sought to follow the gun trail wherever it led to build a case against drug-cartel kingpins.

“The existence of such a program again calls your leadership into question,” Issa wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. “The managerial structure you have implemented lacks appropriate operational safeguards to prevent the implementation of such dangerous schemes. The consequences have been disastrous.”

Already Holder has faced a never-ending flurry of pressure from Republicans in Congress over his statements on when he found out about how Fast and Furious worked. Dozens of guns linked to that operation ended up at Mexican drug-crime scenes, and two were found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder almost a year ago.

Issa’s new probe comes three days before Holder is set to testify Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, and of which Issa is a member.

Under grilling at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Holder said Fast and Furious was “flawed” but he maintained he was accurate in telling the House Judiciary Committee in May he didn’t know about the “gun-walking” tactics while the operation was underway.

A blurry line

The Times article said the alleged money-laundering scheme, mainly involving agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration, appears to “blur the line between surveillance and crime” — a common criticism of Fast and Furious.

Issa also noted the article said the laundering operations the U.S. conducts across the world — known as “Attorney General Exempt Operations — were banned in Mexico in 1998 after U.S. agents conducted one but failed to notify Mexican authorities.

But former agents with the DEA also told The Times the comparison isn’t entirely well-grounded. They contended that money can lead higher into a criminal organization and doesn’t pose as direct a safety threat as do guns.

Issa asked Holder to brief his staff by late tomorrow afternoon, the day what is likely to be the second testy hearing the attorney general has faced in a month — only this time it’s before a committee dominated by Republicans, and this time he could face stiff questioning over an entirely separate operation.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.